by S L Beaumont
“Huh? Do you know what the meeting was about?”
“No, but there were raised voices at one stage and they didn’t stay more than fifteen minutes.”
“What did Dad say after they left?” Jess asked.
Emily sighed. “Well, that’s just the thing. He kept the door closed, so I finished the report that I was editing and went for a late lunch. It wasn’t until I got back that I knocked and went in and found that he was dead. The doctor said it was a massive heart attack. Do you think those men did something to him?” she added in a whisper.
“Yeah, I’m beginning to,” I replied. “Would you recognize them again?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I tried to tell the police when they came, but the doctor was adamant that it was a heart attack, so they didn’t want to know. I’m so sorry, Jess.”
“It’s not your fault, Emily. Thanks for your help.”
“Of course. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Actually, there might be one thing. Your building has security cameras in the lobby right?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to know who those guys were. Do you think you can find the one from the day he died?” I asked.
“I honestly don’t know, but I’ll try in the morning,” she said.
Chapter 21
January 24
“Come on, Jess, time to go,” Dave said leaning against the wall of my cubicle. He had risen to the occasion and was well dressed in smart dark navy jeans with a blue and green button-down shirt topped by a tailored black jacket. He’d had his hair cut and was clean shaven, although he still reminded me of the clichéd Aussie surfer.
I reached into my desk drawer and extracted the gift that I’d picked up for him at lunchtime. I knew that he liked to read, so I’d bought him a new release paperback.
“Happy birthday, Dave,” I said handing it to him.
He looked delighted as he tore the gift wrapping off. “Awesome, mate, I haven’t read this one,” he said. “Can I leave it here so that it doesn’t get lost tonight?”
We met Jimmy and Marie in the lobby. Jimmy was lounging against the wall, his muscular frame dwarfing Marie whose shrieks of laughter could be heard as soon as the lift doors opened, and we filed out to meet them.
She and Jimmy would actually make a great couple, I thought, looking at them, bantering with each other. I made a mental note to mention that to her. I wasn’t sure how she would take such a suggestion, but it made perfect sense all of a sudden. Maybe my messed up situation had turned me into the last of the romantics. She looped her arm through mine as we walked up the road to the restaurant.
“You’re looking a lot better,” she said.
“Yeah, it must have been food poisoning,” I agreed. “I’m over it now though,” I added with determination. She gave me an odd look.
A crowd of Dave’s friends were already assembled and with the arrival of the birthday boy, the party got underway. He had one side of the restaurant sectioned off and people just kept turning up.
“So this is London’s vast Kiwi and Aussie network in action,” I said to Marie.
We pushed through the crowd and found Will seated at a table with Andrew and Rachel, who were munching their way through a bowl of corn chips and salsa.
My heart sank. Well actually, that’s not true. My head sank and my heart went woo-hoo. Rachel jumped up and hugged me. The peroxide blonde was gone and in its place she was sporting a sleek black bob. Will and I exchanged easy smiles. So maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all. Then Frankie came sashaying back to the table carrying a jug of margaritas and slipped onto Will’s lap instead of onto the empty seat next to him. There suddenly wasn’t enough air in the room. I looked away. Okay, so maybe it would be hard after all. I pulled Marie to the bar with me and motioned to the barman ordering a skinny gin and tonic each.
“I didn’t know Frankie was back in town,” I said to her.
“Me neither. I haven’t seen her at the bank this week. Perhaps she’s here to see Will,” Marie replied, looking over her shoulder at the table.
“Obviously,” I muttered, handing some money over to the barman. “Same again please.” I added a splash of tonic from the little bottle he’d delivered with the nips of gin and knocked the drink back in one go, feeling the heat of the liquor travel through my system.
“Whoa, go you.” Marie looked at me sideways. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t follow suit. I’m going to pace myself tonight. I have to catch an early train up to my parents’ place in the morning.”
“All good,” I said and knocked back the second drink. The only way to get through tonight was going to be to drink through the pain. I didn’t care if no one else joined me. “Just stay here and talk to me for a bit.”
“Sure. What’s up? Did you get a chance to talk things over with Colin?”
“He’s gone to New York for a week and I’m moving out while he’s gone.”
Marie’s eyes widened. “Have you told him?”
I shook my head. “I will when he gets back. It’s easier this way, believe me. He’s playing the loving husband at the moment, but I’m not sure how long that will last. I’ve seen him turn quite nasty at times, so I need to have everything planned because I’ve no doubt that he will make things difficult.”
“Aw, Jess. Where are you going? Do you need a place to stay?”
“Actually, that would be great, just for a few nights. I’m viewing a flat on Monday night that sounds perfect, but it’s not available for ten days.”
“Give me a couple of days to tidy up when I get back from Mum and Dad’s, and then come, say, Tuesday after work?”
I leaned over and hugged her. “Thank you.”
“Of course, what are friends for?”
“Anyway, enough about me, what’s new with you?”
Marie launched in a long story about how her mother and sister were annoying the hell out of her. I leaned against the bar and listened, nodding and making the appropriate noises of agreement or shock. After ten minutes, Jimmy joined us and the two of them fell into their usual pattern of flirting with one another. I smiled and took a deep breath, preparing myself to approach the table where the rest of my friends were seated, when a voice beside me spoke. I spun around.
“Hey, Jess, it’s good to see you,” Will said, holding my gaze.
“Sure. How are things? I have to say, Frankie’s looking hot tonight,” I said, the alcohol loosening my tongue.
Frankie had gone all out and was wearing sexy low-slung black leather pants, high spiked heel boots and a blue sequined crop top which showed off both her ample breasts and toned midriff complete with belly button piercing and tattoo peeking out of the top of her waistband. I, on the other hand, had come straight from work and wore tailored black trousers, high block-heeled pumps, and a purple silk t-shirt cut in a V-neck giving just a glimpse of cleavage, topped with a black jacket pinched in at the waist, accentuating my curves. My hair was loosely pinned up with curls falling around my face. Although I looked sophisticated, next to Frankie I felt old, fat and frumpy.
“No,” Will said shaking his head. “She looks like a stripper, you look hot.”
“And yet, you’ll still go home with her.” I couldn’t help sounding bitter.
“Well, I can hardly go home with you to the Businessman of the Year, can I? Is he still treating you well, then?” he added, sarcasm heavy in his voice.
We glared at each other for a long moment before Frankie came up, hooked her arm through Will’s and looked from Will to me and back again.
“How are ya, Jess? You haven’t returned my calls,” she said, pouting.
I shrugged. “Sorry, been crazy busy.”
“Are you ready to go?” she asked Will, husky and suggestive, before shooting a slight frown in my direction.
“No, not yet,” Will replied.
Disgusted, I turned and looked around for Jimmy and Dave. “Where are those Antipodeans? Didn’t they say
something about shots?”
Jimmy and Dave needed no encouragement and were beside me within seconds, along with several mates, ordering tequila shots, salt shakers and lime wedges, to be lined up along the bar. I turned my back on Will and Frankie and started chatting with two of the guys, who turned out to be Australian rugby players on contract to a London Club. Will’s eyes narrowed but he allowed Frankie to drag him back to the table, where he sat looking uncomfortable as she draped herself over him while she talked to Rachel.
“Okay, everyone ready,” Jimmy called. Ten shots of tequila were lined up on the bar each with a salt shaker and a lime wedge. “Three, two, one.”
We all knocked back the shot, licked the salt off the back of our hands and sucked the juice from the lime.
“Whoa.” I blew out a breath. The tequila burned harder than gin.
“Same again,” Dave called.
I caught Will watching me with a concerned expression but by that stage I was drunk enough that I decided that he could just sod off. I excused myself and wandered towards the bathroom after the second round, swaying my hips a little more than usual. In the big mirror behind the bar, I could see the eyes of the two rugby players following me. As I passed Will, I saw his expression change and he scowled.
Frankie was at the hand basin retouching her makeup and sulking that Will wasn’t in a hurry to leave with her.
“You’d think he want a bit of this,” she said adjusting her top in the mirror, so that her breasts were even more prominently displayed.
I giggled. I so did not need that image in my head. I felt my giggle begin to turn slightly hysterical, so I left the bathroom and headed back into the restaurant.
Jimmy had commandeered the jukebox in my absence and Dave took my hand and pulled me up onto a table to dance with him when I returned to the bar. I was at the point of no return and needed no encouragement. I looked down into Will’s furious face and smirked. Jimmy, of course, picked up on the tension as he jumped up to join Dave and me.
“Hey, English, we call this an Antipodean sandwich,” he called down to Will, as he and Dave began to bump and grind suggestively either side of me. Will helped me down after the song finished and tried to talk to me.
“Don’t do this on my account. I’m not worth it,” he hissed.
“Oh, you don’t need to tell me, I already know that,” I retorted.
“Jess...” he started.
“You might as well make someone happy tonight, why don’t you just piss off back to Frankie’s hotel,” I snarled.
Will shook his head and dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. Jimmy stepped in and pulled me to the dance floor, but having heard the last part, drunkenly agreed. “Yeah, if you are going to stand there with that sour look on your face, you should just go, Will.”
***
I woke the next morning horribly hungover. That was the last time I was going out anywhere with Jimmy and Dave. I leaned out of bed and grabbed my mobile to check the time. There was a text from Will.
‘Let’s meet. We need to talk. W’
I groaned and flopped back against the pillow as a few hazy images of the previous night swam through my fuzzy brain. I knew that I had argued with Will at the Mexican restaurant and that after he and Frankie had left together, I had gone on partying with Jimmy, Dave and several others.
Shit. I had done such a good job of keeping my feelings for Will under control. What on earth had caused me to slip last night? I really didn’t want to meet and talk. I knew that I wouldn’t come out on top in the state I was in and it was very important that I didn’t let him get under my skin again. I was determined not to let him know that I still had feelings for him, although my lapse the previous night probably told him that anyway.
Taking a deep breath I made my way to the bathroom and had a long hot shower, and downed a couple of paracetamol to help ease my thumping head. Feeling a little more human, I made coffee and sat down to text Will back.
‘Ok. Where?’
‘How about a walk in Hyde Park? Meet you at the Kensington High Street gate.’
I was late arriving, of course. I almost sent him a text to cancel several times, but it was one of those cases of, let’s just get this over with. Will was standing by the gate waiting for me with takeout skinny lattes and a paper bag containing two toasted bagels.
“Thought you might need caffeine and carbs,” he said.
“Mmm… thanks. I’m feeling a little rough,” I acknowledged, taking the coffee from his hand and having a grateful sip as we wandered into the park to find a spot to sit, among the lunchtime crowds and tourists. A grey squirrel bounded across the path in front of us with a nut held in his mouth and ran straight up the nearest tree without pausing.
“We need to talk about last night,” Will began as we walked.
“I’m a little vague, which particular part of last night, cos I don’t remember much past the tattoo parlor.” I frowned, trying to dredge up the rest of the evening from the recesses of my memory.
“What?”
“No, not me, bloody Jimmy. Although he would have had a kiwi tattooed on my butt if he’d had his way.”
“I’m not sure that’s the only thing he had in mind for your butt,” Will muttered.
I rolled my eyes. Will was way off. The only thing Jimmy wanted to talk about last night was Marie, who’d had the sense to leave early.
We settled in the sun on a gently sloping grassy bank with the red-brick splendor of Kensington Palace behind us. I leaned back and turned my face to the sky, letting the warmth of the winter sunshine soak into me. Vapor trails crisscrossed overhead and the odd fluffy cloud curled around. I watched as a mother rushed to pick up a toddler who’d taken a tumble at the edge of a pond.
“I’m sorry Frankie turned up like that,” Will began. “I didn’t even know she was in town until just before you arrived at the restaurant last night.”
I shrugged as if I didn’t care. “It’s nothing to do with me, Will, remember?”
“Jess, I know I hurt you. I was stupid and feeling a little scared about how close we were getting, and I didn’t handle it at all well. I was pissed that you’d gone out with Colin instead of me and I got drunk and the next thing I was dancing with Frankie at the Greenwich thing. I’m sorry,” Will said.
I shifted my gaze down to my coffee cup and took a long swallow. “Yeah, you did hurt me, but I’m over it,” I replied, hoping to convince myself as much as him. I thought he perhaps saw through me. “Maybe we should just try being friends for a while.”
“Let me get this straight. You have moved on and let this go already. Yeah, right,” he concluded.
I shook my head. “Don’t do this.”
“Why not, Jess? We still have strong feelings for each other. Don’t tell me Colin has finally stepped up to the plate?” he asked, his lip curled.
“That’s none of your business,” I spat back.
“So he hasn’t, then,” Will retorted, his eyes flashing. “And we both know that even if he did, it wouldn’t come close to what you and I had.”
“So how was your night with Frankie?” I changed the subject.
“We argued about you, if you must know,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I dropped her at her hotel and then came back to the restaurant to get you, but you’d already gone. She wasn’t best pleased. Told me not to bother coming back,” he explained.
“Okay. That explains why she hasn’t been in touch with me this morning. I expect she had big plans for you last night.”
“Yeah, well, we’re on different pages. My interest lies elsewhere.” He paused, tilting his head to gauge my reaction.
“Will, this can’t go anywhere. We’ll only end up hurting each other again,” I said, my voice catching and a big fat tear rolling unbidden down my cheek. The realization hit me like a blow. I was in love with him. Oh shit. Avoiding his gaze, I gathered my bag and started to get up. “Thanks for the coffee. I
should go.”
Chapter 22
January 25
I cleared my schedule for the morning on Monday. Things were a little slow at the office at the moment, so I decided that I would go in late. I wanted to check out the address of the third company on Dad’s schedule, although I suspected that it would be a similar story to the other two. I scrolled through my email while eating breakfast. There was a message from Dad’s assistant Emily in my inbox.
‘Jess, I’ve had no luck on the cameras at the front of the building or the ones in the lobby. The ones out front have been sprayed over by vandals and the lobby ones are blank for that day, which is strange. The technician said there appears to have been a glitch or something.’
I grabbed my mobile and called her.
“Hi, Jess. Did you get my message?” she answered.
“Yeah, that’s too bad.”
“It’s not all bad. I’ve just checked with the buildings either side in case their street cams picked up the men arriving and one of them has something. I’m just getting some stills copied for you.”
“Great,” I said. “Can you see who they are?”
“No, the camera was tilted down so you can only see their legs. Probably the same vandals damaged their camera as did ours. What you can see though, is their car and a partial license plate.”
I gave a sharp intake of breath. “That’s brilliant, Emily. Thank you. Can you send them to my email?”
I stood up to make another coffee, when the intercom buzzed.
“Delivery for Colin McDonald,” a muffled voice announced when I answered.
I pressed the door release to let the courier in the main door downstairs.
I had just unlocked the front door of the flat, when it was thrust hard into me knocking me off balance. A man wearing a motor cycle helmet and dark clothes stood on the threshold.
“Colin. Where is he?” he demanded.
“The States,” I replied, holding on to the door and trying to push it closed. “Who the hell are you?”